The first post in our new category of “Practice Metrics” – the numbers that affect your alternative health practice. Let’s start with some basic data on new patient visits.
Even the most robust practice will eventually start to dry up without a supply of new patients. For starting your tracking your new patient numbers, you’ll want the following information:
Total Number of New Patients: The total number of fresh faces per day/week/month/quarter/year. An easy one to generate, but critical to keep an eye on.
Referral Source: Where do your new patients come from? I recommend tracking referrals from 4 main sources. Keeping an eye on what proportion of your patients are coming from promotions, other patients, friends and family, etc. helps allocate advertising dollars, and focus your efforts on the best new patient sources.
Keep an eye out for any of the following:
- declining new patient numbers
- seasonal variations – great for either planning vacations or increasing marketing efforts, depending on which you need more, rest or cash
- ineffective marketing – if you’re advertising, but not seeing new patients from that source, it can be a sign to make a change in your marketing, or abandon that particular method altogether
These are simple measures, but they provide some basic growth measures for your alternative health practice, and form the basis for some more critical measures to follow.
